Homeless Need More Help, 'berg Speaker Says

January 16, 1992|by MICHAEL R. STRICKLAND, The Morning Call

At 16, Leona Smith spent a year sleeping in abandoned buildings, cars and under a friend's bed.

Smith said that no one who mattered cared enough to help her find a place to live. When she slept under the bed, her friend's parents knew nothing about it, and Smith would come out after they went to work.

"I was a runaway. My mother was sick, and I didn't understand her," Smith said. "I lived every day frightened, scared of being raped."

Now in her late 40s, the president of the National Union for the Homeless wonders if soon there will even be such a thing as a middle class. She said she envisions masses of now self-sufficient people ending up victims of poverty, unless millions more are spent to reverse the plight of the American underclass.

"We are in a recession/depression. Money dwindles, and jobs are lost," she told a group of 125 people at Muhlenberg College yesterday. "Homelessness is really a symptom of a much larger problem in America."

"The National Union of the Homeless has chapters in 18 cities," Smith said. "Our goal is to have homeless people speak for and empower themselves. But hopefully we can also train most of you who haven't experienced what we've been through.

She said the gentrification factor is the result of government and industry spending money abroad and on housing for the well-to-do, "then saying sorry, we don't have any money left for the homeless."

"There is no money in low-income, affordable housing," Smith said. "Government loses money when you start talking about it."

Smith said the amount of money Philadelphia has allocated to helping the homeless has been cut by $13.8 million since 1989. She said only $18 million is budgeted.

Smith is also involved in the Dignity Shelter in Philadelphia, which she said is the nation's only homeless shelter founded, organized and operated by the homeless. "I challenge anyone to live on $4.25 an hour," Smith said, "because when you make $4.25 that you can't live off anyway, they take away your welfare, food stamps and medical card. We must reform that system. The minimum wage should be $8 to $10 an hour.

"No, President Bush is not doing enough, and new Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell isn't even talking about homelessness," Smith said. "Change must come from the people."

An international view on Smith's talk and the problem of homelessness came from Nicole Barkova, a student at Muhlenberg who spelled her homeland "Czecho-Slovakia," saying they are two distinct nations, each with its own language, under one government.

"The lecture was very enlightening. We always had hidden homelessness that nobody was supposed to talk about," Barkova said.

Barkova, a Czech who is in her sophomore year, said, "Communism was supposed to be wonderful. Everyone was supposed to have jobs and housing. If you were living on the street you were supposed to be arrested because the constitution guaranteed the right and responsibility to work."

Barkova said she found Smith's presentation especially helpful because the problem of homelessness is finally beginning to be dealt with officially in her homeland, and that formerly Communist countries can learn a lot from American homeless-rights activists.

Greg Merkel, a sophomore physics major, said, "Being from Philadelphia, I appreciate the fact that Smith realizes homelessness is not just the government's responsibility. But she also tries to get government to do their part."

"When does she sleep?" asked Beth Stetler, a junior history and secondary education major responding to Smith's grueling workshop and lecture schedule. "She does so much, it's amazing."

"Though really informative, the most important part of Smith's message is one of getting people aware and to help out," Stetler said, "Not to just go home after the lecture."